lupin

Ooh! I hadn't heard about these - couldn't get the web link to work I'm afraid.

Sounds to me as if the rear window is not quite correctly seated following converting the car back to saloon mode from cabriolet. I've had this experience a couple of times when puting the roof back on, and just had to jiggle the hinged seating of the rear window to get things working again. There's obviously some kind of interlock to prevent the roof being operated if the roof-rails on the side roof-bars aren't exactly aligned with the rails on the rear window - resumably to prevent any chance of the sliding roof becoming derailed when it's operated.

Sooz, I'll be interested to hear how you get on. My Sensodrive clutch judders occasionally, and sometimes "snatches" rather than engaging smoothly. The behaviour of the Sensodrive system at low speed, however, is downright dangerous in my opinion. Turning sharply off a main road into a side road with a steep incline (as I have to do to reach my house) is the prime example - with the gearbox refusing to select any gear for several seconds until the car starts to slide backwards down the slope, then rngaging with a jerk. Also unacceptable is when you slow down to a near stop on approaching a roundabout then try to accelerate away again quickly when a gap in the traffic appears - only for nothing to happen for several seconds (during which time you naturally apply more throttle in an attempt to get the car to move). The clutch will then suddenly decide to engage, and propel the car into the traffic like a rocket, with tyres squealing, but several seconds after the gap in the traffic has already passed. Both embarassing dangerous if you ask me!

Latte, I already left a reply attached to your other posting in the "Questions" section, but these covers are always coming up for sale on eBay for about £50. As I write there is one there on offer now at £46 with sixteen hours to go.\; http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/citroen-pluriel-rain...1QQcmdZViewItem Otherwise, go to eBay anytime, search for "pluriel" and often you'll find that there's one of these covers up for sale. No need to spend £150, or anything like that sort of money!

I don't quite understand what you mean by a soft top. Do you mean the plastic, waterproof "tonneau" cover which can be rapidly stretched across the top of the Pluriel in cabriolet mode to stop the interior getting wet? You'll find these quite frequently for sale on eBay (expect to pay about £50-60), but you should note that they are only for use on a stationary, parked car. They're also useful if you want to leave the roof down overnight (to avoid the hassle of taking the roof bars on and off), and are worried that it might rain. It's a clever design, and very easy to put on, but you can't drive with it. Try this link for example: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/citroen-pluriel-rain...1QQcmdZViewItem

The intrusion alarm on my Pluriel seems to be set with the sensitivity too high. I have to leave it parked next to a busy road, and during some nights the alarm will go-off four or five times - usually when a juggernaught lorry speeds past. There are no other cars in the street that respond in this way, so I can only assume that the alarm is too sensitive. Is there any way of adjusting the sensitivity?

I've been a fan of ZX1 for about 5 or 6 years now. I'm not sure that I've seen any hugely dramatic increase in performance with it, but it is known to be a effective anti-wear additive and is used a lot by the racing fraternity. It's worth noting that it mustn't be added to a new engine until after it is thoroughly run-in, otherwise it will prevent metal surfaces from "bedding in" properly - and you may actually end up with poorer performance!

Thanks for the reply John, My main reason for wanting to have KPH on the speedometer is to avoid falling foul of speed cameras. I'm not sure that I have the arithmetic agility to do the conversion from KPH to MPH in time to avoid getting flashed!

We're taking our C3 (Pluriel) to France this weekend for a three week touring holiday, and I have two questions about adapting the car for continental driving: a) Can anyone recommend the best type of headlamp beam deflectors for this car? :lol: Is it possible to change the speedometer display from miles-per-hour to kilometers-per-hour? Any advice welcome!

Does anyone have any experience of cleaning/restoring the folding roof on the Pluriel. The black roof on my 9 month old car is already starting to lose it's colour and turn a little grey. What do most people use to restore the shine and colour? I was planning to try something like "Back to Black" trim restorer, but maybe there's something better out there. Anyone got any experience with this?

Can anyone tell me if the Pluriel has an electrics plug fitted, ready to accept the wiring for a towbar? If so, where is it?

Chris, Your dealer is quite right. The Sensodrive gearbox is automatic (insofar as it changes gear automatically when required) but works in a different way from the great majority of automatic gearboxes out there. The Sensodrive system is really just a standard manual gearbox with electrically activated clutch and gearshift mechanisms. The car's computer determines when it's time to change gear, cuts the engine momentarily, de-clutches, shifts gear , re-engages the clutch, and restores power - just like a driver would do in a manual car. A "conventional" automatic transmission (as found on most automatic cars) works in a completely different way. There is no clutch mechanism as such - instead, the viscosity of the automatic transmission fluid is used to create drag between two very closely opposed vaned discs (a system known as a torque convertor). The faster the primary disc which is connected to the engine drive-shaft spins - the greater the drag exerted on the secondary disc which drives the gearbox. So, as you increase the engine speed on a stationary car the gearbox begins to turn more strongly until the car eventually starts to move off. All the cogs in the gearbox are permenantly engaged with each other, and gearshifts are effected at the appropriate speeds by restricting the rotation of specific gearshafts, thereby transferring power to others - too complicated to explain here! The upshot is, that with the standard automatic gearbox the torque convertor exerts a constant slight turning force on the wheels, even when your foot is off the accelerator, resulting in a tendency for the car to creep gently forward - a usefully characteristic for driving in nose-to-tail traffic jams where the car will keep slowly moving forward unless the brake is applied. This same effect also prevents the car from rolling backwards on hills. Clearly no such effect occurs with the "Sensodrive" system, however, because it uses a standard (albeit electrically operated) clutch mechanism rather than a torque-convertor - so no creeping forward in traffic, and no holding its position on hills. I have no idea why Citroen chose to design this system, when so many excellent conventional automatic gearboxes, suitable for small cars,already exist. Several car manufacturers employed this sort of system back in the 1950s when automatic gearboxes were much more primitive, but all of them were dropped as better systems became available. I just can't see Citroen's reasoning here. I would guess that possibly it may be more fuel efficient than a regular automatic transmission. Maybe they had hoped to make something much better than they finally were able to achieve! Certainly, I have yet to read a good word about the Sensodrive system, and in my opinion its performance has some real safety issues. The feature that most drivers find alarming is the hesitation in engaging the clutch which sometimes occurs when you slow down almost to a stop and then try to accelerate away quickly again - e.g. on approaching a roundabout. It's a weird system that takes a little getting used to. The semi-automatic option, which can be engaged by the button next to the gearlever, allows you to make the decision when to change gear rather than leaving it up to the computer, but the gearchange is still performed electrically as with full auto mode. The gearlever and steering-mounted paddle-shifts are really nothing more than electrical switches. The manual advises against trying to hold the car's position on a hill using the accelerator since, as with a manual gearbox, this will soon wear out the clutch.

Mattb, Thanks for the info. I managed to find a website carrying some more information, but unfortunately it hasn't been updated as to the eventual outcome of Mr. Edgar's court case. http://www.safespeed.org.uk/notso.html There's a speed camera near where I live that has flashed me on two occasions when my speed has been significantly below the 40 mph limit (35-36mph) - I'm only too aware of this site , so I always monitor my speed as I go past it. I've no reason to believe that my speedometer is grossly inaccurate, so it's a bit worrying. I didn't receive a summons on either occasion, however.

Somehow, I've never had a speeding ticket (in thirty seven years of driving) so I've no personal axe to grind, but am I alone in getting concerned about the sheer level of police camera surveillance as people go about their lawful daily lives? Just commuting into London by public transport it's been estimated that most people are photographed or filmed about fifty times a day. We've seen a never-ending increase in the number of speed cameras, congestion cameras, traffic-light cameras, etc. filming us continually on the roads, and soon we're all apparently to have satellite tracking devices implanted in our cars for road pricing so that our every move can be tracked and recorded. On top of that, the latest generation of speed cameras actually takes a photograph of the driver's face. They're even talking about having miniature speed cameras built into "cat's eyes" all the way along the road. The Russian KGB or East German Stasi could only have dreamed of this level of intrusion into people's everyday lives. Particularly worrying is that the information may be retained almost indefinitely, even if no traffic offence was recorded. If I hear one more police chief bleating on along the lines of "if you haven't committed an offence then you've got nothing to fear ", I think I'll explode. People just don't want to feel that they're being constantly monitored and recorded - it just amazes me that there isn't more of a public backlash against all this surveillence masquerading under the guise of traffic management!

I need to fit a towbar to my newish C3 Pluriel - just for pulling my little two-wheel Erde trailer around taking garden refuse to the local tip. My local Citroen dealer quoted about £450 for fitting a basic towbar with single electrics, which seems a trifle excessive. Even a towbar fitting specialist in the local paper wants about £350 for the job. By contrast, I can buy a C3 Pluriel towbar kit on the internet for only £125 including single electrics fitting kit, which uses existing holes in the chassis/floor, and doesn't require any cutting. I'm perfectly happy about bolting the thing on, but a little apprehensive about tapping into the car's wiring system to wire-up the electrics. Apparently a "multiplex" wiring kit can be supplied with the towbar for an extra fifty quid, which is supposed to be a much safer solution than the standard wiring kit for modern cars with computer controlled electrical systems. Does anyone have any experience of towbar fitting, and how easy it is to connect up the electrics? Is the multiplex kit worth the extra money? Will DIY fitting of a towbar it invalidate my warranty? All comments welcome.

Daftmitch, It sounds ridiculous, but are you absolutely sure that you didn't have your foot on the brake when you tried to drive off? I've had this same experience with my sensodrive Pluriel a couple of times now, and on both occasions it took me a minute or two to realise that my left foot was resting on the brake pedal rather than on the floor! The brakes are so light on the C3 that the tiniest pressure on the pedal will stop the car from moving. Both times I was momentarily convinced that something dreadful had gone wrong with the gearbox. I expect other drivers have encountered the same phenomenon.

My 2005 Sensodrive Pluriel has always had an occasional touch of clutch judder - say once every 10 or 15 miles of town driving. It just seems to be a feature of the under-engineered Sensodrive drive train.

For the last few years , with my other cars, I've been impressed by a friction-reducing engine oil additive called ZX1. I'm not quite clear, however, if the engine oil in the petrol 1.6 litre C3 sensodrive is shared with the auto gearbox/ clutch mechanism, and whether using such an additive might consequently be dangerously inappropriate in this car. Anyone know?

My nearly new C3 Pluriel is fitted with the standard radio/CD unit, but not with the optional dashboard CD changer. I've just bought the correct "Citroen" (actually Blaupunkt) in-dash 5-CD changer on eBay, but would appreciate some advice on fitting it. Where is the cheapest place to buy the connecting cable to the head unit? Will I need to have the whole sound system re-coded by a Citroen dealer (it implies as much on the CD-changer box!)? Will I need to disconnect the head unit in order to plug the cable in (this presumably would definitely require a re-coding of the system afterwards)? Is there anyting else that I need to know to get the job done? Any help is most welcome.